Business and management

The UAW vote at VW

Politicians at the gate

ALMOST two weeks ago, workers at Volkswagen's (VW) Chattanooga plant voted against being represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW), one of America's biggest labour unions. The result was a disappointment for the UAW, to say the least: Chattanooga probably represented its best shot to organise a foreign-owned car plant in the American South and to halt the union's decline (its membership has fallen dramatically—from 1.5m in 1979 to less than 400,000 active members today). VW permitted the union to campaign inside its plant and shares the UAW's goal of creating a German-style works council in Chattanooga.

Some believe the UAW lost because it did not make a good enough case to VW's employees. They are well-paid (especially compared to the average income in Tennessee) and may not have seen what the union could offer them. The UAW, however, has identified another culprit: elected officials in Tennessee. On February 26th the union filed a complaint with the National Labour Relations Board, the federal agency that oversees union elections and enforces American labour law.

The complaint alleges that certain politicians "conducted what appears to have been a coordinated and widely-publicised coercive campaign...to deprive [VW] workers of their federally-protected right" to unionise "free of coercion, intimidation, threats and interference." Among the politicians cited are Bo Watson, a state senator who warned that VW would have a "very tough time" securing future tax incentives if its workers chose to unionise; Beth Harwell, the state House Speaker, who seconded Mr Watson's comments; and Bob Corker, a senator who said he was "assured that should the workers vote against the UAW, Volkswagen will announce in the coming weeks that it will manufacture its new midsized SUV here in Chattanooga" (VW said that workers' decision would not affect whether the new SUV gets built in Chattanooga or Mexico).

The UAW argues that such statements amount to third-party interference, which caused workers to fear that a vote for unionisation would mean that "both their job security at [VW's Chattanooga plant] and the financial health of their plant were in serious jeopardy." It urges the NLRB to overturn the election results and allow VW's workers to revote: the "shameful conduct" of the elected officials, it says, effectively deprived workers of their freedom of choice. The UAW has until March 7th to provide supplemental evidence supporting its contention, after which the NLRB's regional office will conduct an administrative investigation, which may at some point lead to a hearing. The process, as this flow chart shows, is lengthy and Byzantine.

Many believe the UAW faces an uphill battle. Five VW workers have already challenged the complaint, alleging that the UAW and VW are "colluding" to force unionisation onto workers at the Chattanooga plant. The case the UAW cites in support of its position on third-party coercion concerns not politicians voicing their opinion, but pro-union workers frogmarching colleagues to vote in a union election and promising to "beat up" any who voted against the union. And whereas 712 workers voted against union representation, 626 workers somehow ignored the interference and voted for it.

A ruling in the UAW's favour would almost certainly provoke strong first-amendment objections. Politicians, after all, have the right to air their opinions in public. And it should surprise nobody that those opinions were strongly anti-union, coming as they did from Republican politicians in a southern state.

The timing of the opponents' fallacious statements--so near to the time of voting as to make corrections difficult and untimely--seems pretty suspicious. I work in the field of labor relations as a management representative, and even I was offended by the flagrant behavior of Senator Corker et al. Proving that a violation of federal labor law consists in this behavior, like proving slander, will be hard; but not impossible. Certainly, they violated the spirit of the law if not its letter.

This is the United States. Democracy is not new, here. You really can't stop people saying whatever they want before an election, either the UAW or their opponents. A politician telling less than the whole truth? Shocking! Particularly when opposing organized labor, a paragon of truth and honesty. Look, all of the people voting were grownups. I'm sure they heard both sides, and I'm sure they received those messages with the appropriate skepticism. The UAW clearly needs to improve the product they're selling. Until they receive that message, they are likely to continue to struggle.

I live in the north where my "southern" parents immigrated to. Yes, I said that right. There are literally hundreds of thousands Southern folk who made the good choice to move North and grab decent wages and fair benefits that the unionized North has offered since pre-WW11 days. Now, here me. I lived in Cleveland, Tennessee for two years while working in Chattanooga during the early nineties. I absolutely loved the weather and believe me the folks in that area treated me right. I have good memories and no regrets living there. However, I did have to find a job in Atlanta to satisfy my income expectations. That is a personal choice. I question the Tennessee politicians actions. Volkswagon's business structure is based on labor representation. The workers would have been better off to join the UAW ranks. I have seen and lived both sides of the equation. The UAW has changed internally and isn't the monster that folks might think it is. Remember this, modern times has changed the cliché "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Change is the norm in a manufacturing facility.

You my friend are a moron. Open up your history books and see what it was like here before the unions. Unions are on the decline right now, do you think that has anything to do with the working poor and income inequality.

Typical TE gibberish. First off, free speech doesn't protect fraudulent or slanderous speech and let's face it, Southern Republicans wouldn't know the truth if it was written on a Confederate flag. Corker and the rest clearly lied to get their way, that isn't an opinion. How sad that the Economist, champion of the free market, thinks lying is acceptable when Smith was clear that it is not. And that some voted for the union, doesn't prove the assertion that there wasn't interference. And the "case" doesn't refer to the UAW, but to another union and it involved scabs crossing a picket line and not a union vote.

Good post Ohio. I generally agree with your statement. Too often folks (on both sides) blame the other's "dirty tricks" for their loss, when there is 1. no proof that the dirty tricks caused a different outcome and 2. don't hold themselves to the same standard.

My only caveat, I don't think we should simply sit back and let it stand, if the tricks were bad enough, if the coercion really did sway enough votes, then courts should step in. There are limits.

But, as you say, 90% of the time when one political group blames the other side, the reality is that they just didn't do a good enough job getting out their message. And on the face of it, this sure does seem to be one of those times.

Because Obama didn't say anything wrong. Republicanism has cost this country almost everything. Now they want to be stupid and try to screw TN out of something that has improved people's lives in Chattanooga and surrounding areas by offering employment! Corker is a snake and most everyone knows it.

What's really interesting is that VW still hasn't announced its decision where to build the CrossBlue. It was supposed to have been by now, and the delay is probably related to the negative vote in Chattanooga.
Had the Grand Pooh-Bahs of Tennessee actually looked at the situation in Wolfsburg, they would have noticed that the Volkswagen Supervisory Board has a clear majority of pro-labor representatives. Half the board is by law appointed by the company union and half by the providers of capital. But the State of Lower Saxony is holder of 20.1 percent of Volkswagen shares and is granted one of the "capital" seats on the board. Last fall the state was won by a "Red/Green" coalition of the SPD (the Social Democrats) and Greens for the first time. What had for the past thirty or forty years been a very reliable fiefdom for the CDU (Christian Democrats) is now very much pro-union. So that vote can be expected to be offended by the Confederate rebellion.
In addition, the Federal government gets one seat because of the "Volkswagen law" which happens to be held by the labor minister of the new "grand coalition" government, who is an SPD member. He probably doesn't have complete latitude to vote how he wants without discussing it with Chancellor Merkel, who is CDU. But she's got a very full plate with Ukraine and the Euro troubles and probably doesn't want to get cross-wise with President Obama about this.
So it's very likely that those two "government" votes are with the union representatives. Unless Toluca has been making a lot of crappy cars lately, the smart money is on a 12-8 vote to send the SUV there. It's cheaper, even with the Mexican union, and plenty of New Beetles are sent up on the trains already.
And there's one last thing that lots of folks don't think about: Volkswagen's demographic in the United States is rich liberals in the Northern and Western ("Blue") states. They really don't sell that many cars in the South and Midwest. So if they're smart they'll add all that up and decide that their target demographic would be more offended by them building in a scab plant than importing the cars from Mexico.

Politicians may have the right to air their opinions, but I don't think they have a first amendment right to threaten or coerce. I don't know too much about labor laws so I can't speak to the legality of Tennessee officials' actions. However coercing labor to prevent organization is pretty clearly wrong. Given that VW supported bringing unionization into the plant I find it downright crazy.

Yikes. You accuse TE of bias and then you make an statement like "Southern Republicans wouldn't know the truth if it was written on a Confederate flag".

If your goal is to sway public opinion, and not just incite those who already agree with you, you might want to be a bit more respectful of those with differing opinions and tone down the generalizations/stereotypes.

(BTW, I'm saying this as someone who is generally sympathetic to your viewpoints)

What's interesting is how the authors - and all the other commenters here - railing about those stupid/evil/dumb/whatever Republicans - seem to ignore comments from another politician; President Obama. According to Reuters:
"President Barack Obama on Friday waded into a high-stakes union vote at Volkswagen AG's plant in Tennessee, accusing Republican politicians who oppose unionization of being more concerned about German shareholders than U.S. workers.
Obama's comments, made at a closed-door meeting of Democratic lawmakers in Maryland, came as the vote to allow union representation at the Chattanooga plant drew to a close."
Yet somehow, only Republican comments are reported. Why is that? Hmmmm....